After their 1968 military intervention in Czechoslovakia, Soviet leaders worked to restore order and stability. Free expression and open protest disappeared throughout their satellite nations. Dissidents were blacklisted or imprisoned in jails or mental institutions. A rising standard of living helped ensure stability as well. The privileges enjoyed by the Communist Party elite also served as incentives for such elites to do as the state wished. Beneath this appearance of stability, however, the Soviet Union underwent a social revolution. The urban population expanded rapidly, as did the number of highly trained scientists, managers, and specialists. These educated people read, discussed, and formed definite ideas about social questions ranging from pollution to urban transportation, fostering the growth of Soviet public opinion.
When Mikhail Gorbachev (b. 1931) became premier in 1985, he set out to reform the Soviet system with policies he called democratic socialism. The first set of reforms was intended to transform and restructure the economy. This limited economic restructuring, perestroika, permitted freer prices, more autonomy for state enterprises, and the establishment of some profit-
Democratization under Gorbachev led to the first free elections in the Soviet Union since 1917. Gorbachev and the party remained in control, but an independent minority was elected in 1989 to a revitalized Congress of People’s Deputies. Democratization encouraged demands for greater autonomy from non-
Finally, Gorbachev brought “new political thinking” to foreign affairs. He withdrew Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 and sought to reduce Cold War tensions. Gorbachev pledged to respect the political choices of eastern Europe’s peoples. Soon after, a wave of peaceful revolutions swept across eastern Europe, overturning Communist regimes.
Poland led the way. In August 1980 strikes grew into a working-
Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution followed the dramatic changes in Poland and led to the peaceful ouster of Communist leaders. The Czech movement for democracy grew out of massive street protests led by students and intellectuals and resulted in the election of Václav Havel (VAH-
Only in Romania was revolution violent. Communist dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu (chow-
Amid growing resistance, the Hungarian Communist Party scheduled free elections for early 1990. Hungarians tore down the barbed wire that separated Hungary and Austria (see Map 31.1) and opened their border to refugees from East Germany. As thousands of East Germans passed through Czechoslovakia and Hungary on their way to West Germany, a protest movement arose in East Germany. East Germany’s leaders relented and opened the Berlin Wall in November 1989, before being swept aside. An “Alliance for Germany” won general elections and negotiated an economic union with West Germany.
Two factors contributed to the rapid reunification of East and West Germany. First, in the first week after the Berlin Wall opened, almost 9 million East Germans poured across the border into West Germany. Almost all returned home, but their experiences in the West aroused long-
The great postcommunist tragedy was Yugoslavia, whose federation of republics and regions had been held together under Josip Tito’s Communist rule. After Tito’s death in 1980, power passed increasingly to the republics. Rising territorial and ethnic tensions were intensified by economic decline and charges of ethnically inspired massacres during World War II. The revolutions of 1989 accelerated the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbian president Slobodan Milošević (SLOH-